Thursday, January 5, 2017

21 Greatest Pinoy B-Movies (2008 article)

21 Greatest Pinoy
B-Movies

Article by Andrew
Leavold and Lourd de Veyra [Originally
published in FHM Philippines, December 2008]

You know you've made
it both as a writer and a film historian when your work is featured
in the Philippines' version of FHM magazine! My colleague and sometime partner in crime Lourd de Veyra more than ably covered the Tagalog cult rarities.

Here's what I
originally sent them...

The Greatest Pinoy
Bold Film: There’s a huge number of runners-up – Celso Ad.
Castillo’s Snake Sisters and Isla, Tikoy Aguiluz’s The Boatman,
Peque Gallaga’s Virgin Forest and Scorpio Nights – but the most
striking of all is Silip (dir. Elwood Perez, 1985), a clearly insane
assault on religious dogma set in a fundamentalist Catholic
dune-locked village, featuring Pasolini-style sacrilege, gore and
near-hardcore pornography. Silip’s three devout sisters (including
bold megastars Maria Isabel Lopez and Sarsi Emmanuel) are in love
with Simon, the promiscuous village buck whom they brand a demon due
to his abnormally large organ. “We must cleanse you!” screams
Maria at her aroused younger sibling while throwing handful after
handful of purifying sand up her skirt.

Greatest Pinoy
Copyright Thefts: James Batman (1966) HOLY BATCOW! A pop culture
free-for-all from the all-time king of Pinoy parodies, Dolphy stars
as James Bond AND Batman, and often in the same shot! It’s BIFF,
POW, ZOINKS with the exaggerated cartoon angles and a surfadelic
soundtrack from Carding Cruz…

The Bionic Boy(dir.
Leody M. Diaz, 1977) Produced by Bobby A. Suarez, a miniaturized kung
fu-kicking version of the Six Million Dollar Man (that’s technology
for you!) played by a precocious 8-year-old kung fu prodigy named
Master Johnson Yap, who can do everything Steve Austin can except buy
a pack of cigarettes. Of course the producers of the Six Million
Dollar Man sued, but forgot you can’t trademark the word “bionic”.
Bobby Suarez one, Universal Studios nil…

Alyas Batman en
Robin (dir. Tony Reyes, 1992) Jaw-droppingly absurd Batman parody
with spoof king Joey de Leon, the cadaverous Rene Requiestas as the
Joker, and Dolphy's sidekick Panchito as Tio Joker. Oh, and it's a
musical! Brothers Kenneth and Kevin (aka the Caped Crusader and
Wonder Boy) drive around in a convertible with tacked-on Bat Wings
and battle the Joker (who has a gravity-defying Dali moustache) and
an extremely portly 'Tio' Penguin for truth, justice and the Filipino
way of life. The entire incomprehensible mess is in Tagalog, except
for the Beach Boys' musical numbers which are (almost) in English. At
the end, Kenneth and Kevin teach the Joker and Penguin a lesson in
morality, who then proceed to sing (to the tune of 'Let's Go To The
Hop')... “Let’s be good, not bad, Let's be afraid of God!” The
entire cast, including Wonder Woman and a go-go dancing midget in a
Spiderman outfit, all launch into a rendition of the title theme (to
the tune of "Surfin' Safari"). An easy candidate for Most
Ludicrous Film of All Time, and possibly the most flagrant breach of
copyright known to the legal system.

Greatest Pinoy
Samurai Zombie Film: Raw Force (1982) Imagine a film shot by
Americans in the Philippines exploiting every possible angle:
cannibals, zombies, samurais, white kung fu (this WAS 1982, and Chuck
Norris reigned supreme!), gumby comedy, and more flesh on display
than a Friday night karaoke crawl. Aging name actor Cameron Mitchell
stars as the skipper of a rusty tub washed up on Warrior’s Island,
home to a renegade group of grinning, clapping cannibal monks who can
reanimate the corpses of disgraced martial artists to do their
bidding.

Greatest Pinoy Rambo
Ripoff: No Blood No Surrender (1986) God knows there were more than a
few, but this one takes the biscuit. The corpse-thin comedian Palito
(Ram-Buto, James Bone) is our Stallone clone, running around the
Filipino jungle clutching a machine gun twice his size! With Max
Alvarado, Ruben Ramos, Panchito as his commander sent to "bring
him in," and a surprise cameo from FPJ as – wait for it –
actor Sylvester Stallone!

Greatest Pinoy
Midget Spy Films: For Y’ur Height Only (dir. Eddie Nicart, 1981)
Over the astounding course of the film our 2 foot 9 hero Secret Agent
00, a curious little brown creature with a receding Ramones bowl cut
and an all-white suit and boater, cracks an international drug ring,
gets the girl, loses the girl (“Irmaaaaa!”) and infiltrates the
secret lair of evil criminal mastermind Mr Giant (played,
appropriately enough, by three-foot dwarf star Goliath!), all with an
armful of gadgets and his famous trick of punching someone in the
balls, then running between their legs. It’s not just the novelty
of seeing a Filipino midget pretending to be a gun expert and ladies’
man, or the inexplicable thrill of watching bad (and I mean BAD) kung
fu movies. Maybe it’s the surreal dubbing that takes For Your
Height Only into another dimension. Perhaps it’s a combination of
its constituent elements, or something new altogether… followed by
The Impossible Kid (dir. Eddie Nicart, 1982) midget superhero Agent
OO is back and is shorter than ever in his little white suit and
pudding bowl haircut, now working for the Manila branch of Interpol.
The Chief, a low-rent version of M complete with his own Miss
Moneypenny, sends him in the pursuit of Mr X, an arch villian with a
white sock on his head, who is holding the Philippines to ransom. Two
businessmen, Senor Manolo (classic bad guy Romy Diaz) and Don Simeon
(Tony Carreon), pay the demands but Weng Weng suspects foul play and
goes deep undercover to reveal the identity of Mr X. Here the James
Bond references kick into top gear: Agent OO has even MORE gadgets at
his disposal, including a miniature bike which sounds like one of
those high-pitched grass cutters and does an incredible leap across a
ravine - along a very visible wire! Another highlight is an
incredible stunt where Weng Weng gets to use his circus training and
walks along a tight rope between two buildings. He then jumps down a
garbage chute straight onto his waiting motorbike. Impossible? Mais
non!

Greatest Pinoy
Western Parodies: It’s a one-two punch from two-foot-nine superstar
Weng Weng, whose first hit movie was in Da Best In Da West (1981) as
Dolphy’s miniature deputy Bronson. RVQ’s joyously elaborate
tribute to the Golden Age of Pinoy Westerns features cowboy sensation
Lito Lapid as Dolphy’s straight man and every familiar “goon”
from the Sixties and Seventies. Followed by D’Wild Wild Weng (Eddie
Nicart, 1982), one of Weng Weng’s rarest starring roles as “Mr
Weng”, a government agent sent to the troubled Santa Monica to
rescue the townsfolk from the corrupt new Mayor (Romy Diaz). It’s a
midget Filipino spy western with half the cast in Mexican mustaches
and sombreros, and the other half – a tribe of dwarf “Red
Indians” – in war paint and feathers!

The Greatest Female
Pinoy James Bond: Never has Filipino cinema been so gloriously
derivative, so cheesily Seventies, or so much goofy, jaw-on-the-floor
fun than in the “Cleopatra Wong” trilogy from director Bobby A.
Suarez. They Call Her…Cleopatra Wong (1977) starts the series with
an outrageous pan-Asian actioner starring Singaporean beauty Marrie
Lee as the high-kicking disco diva, weapons expert and secret agent
Cleopatra Wong. While on holiday in Manila, Cleo uncovers a major
currency counterfeit operation, and immediately her kindly but sleazy
Interpol chief orders her on the trail. Clad in orange hotpants and
white boots, shooting through thin air on a turbo bike and taking on
thirty balding wrestlers at once, it’s little wonder fanboy Asian
fetishist Quentin Tarantino cites Cleo as a major inspiration for his
Kill Bill series. In a classy display of Filipino ingenuity,
producer/director Bobby A. Suarez milks his international locations
for all his micro-budget allows: from a chop-sockfest above Hong Kong
harbour and a riotous free-for-all on Singapore’s Sentosa Island to
the film’s explosive finale, a thirty-minute undercover raid on a
monastery with Cleo and co in nuns habits (and moustaches) tearing up
the Philippines countryside in possibly the only entry in the "Nuns
with Guns" subgenre.

In Dynamite Johnson
(1978), the Bionic Boy returns - and Cleopatra Wong (Marrie Lee) is
his auntie! While in hospital his bionic ear picks up a burns victim
rambling insanely about a fire-breathing dragon. The 'Dragon' is
later revealed to be a neo-Nazi organization complete with bleached
Aryans with eyepatches, who plan to blow up the world's major
capitals starting with Hong Kong (why?). Our diminutive part-animal
part-machine, aided by the cat-like Auntie Cleo, dispatches the denim
flared cartoon baddies kung-fu style with a stoopid-sounding
synthesiser da-na-na-na-na-na-na. Devil's Three (aka Devil’s
Angels, Pay Or Die; 1979) sees Cleopatra Wong in her third and final
adventure with a cross-dressing Franco "Chito" Guerrero and
a 300 pound psychic sidekick!

Greatest Pinoy
Amputee Revenge Film: The One-Armed Executioner (1982) An essential
addition from director Bobby A. Suarez to the short- lived 'Amputee
Revenge' subgenre. Interpol agent Ramon (Cleopatra Wong’s Franco
Guerrero) is horribly truncated by the henchman of an evil drug
baron. The super-suave Wayne Newton lookalike turns into an
embittered One-Armed alcoholic beaten up by Two-Armed dockside bums.
His former boss tracks him down and sends him to a One-Armed kung fu
training camp, turning the digitally-challenged agent into a
One-Armed killing machine. Like you can't see the arm under his
shirt!

Greatest Pinoy
Christian Gore Film: The Killing Of Satan (dir. Efren C. Pinon, 1983)
On the surface a delirious Catholic horror - Ramon Revilla as a Jesus
figure squaring off against a red-stockinged Satan! – but with much
deeper roots in pagan folklore, and brimming with startling,
primordial snake imagery.

Greatest Pinoy
Vampire Films: National Film Artist Gerardo de Leon crafted two
masterpieces of atmospheric gothic horror in the mid Sixties: Kulay
Dugo Ang Gabi (export title “The Blood Drinkers”, 1964) and
Ibulong Mo Sa Hangin (export title “Curse Of The Vampires”,
1966), both featuring the stunning though doomed Amalia Fuentes, and
dripping with European-style atmosphere. In Kulay…, Ronald Remy is
striking as the complicated villain Dr Marco, as bald as Nosferatu in
dark glasses and snappy 60s black outfits, and simultaneously
terrorizing a secluded jungle village while pining for his dying
vampire love Katrina. As well as a vampire, he’s a man of science
and medicine, and with the help of his hunchbacked assistant and mute
dwarf, he plans to transplant the still-beating heart of the village
girl Charito into Katrina (both played by Amalia Fuentes). Modern
technology and traditional faith are constantly juxtaposed in a film
which cuts between colour film and black and white footage tinted in
cool blues and blood red. Ms Fuentes returns in Ibulong… as the
heroine Leonore, a tragic figure at the centre of the doomed Escudero
family riddled with vampirism and more. The father Don Enrique
(Johnny Monteiro) denies permission for her to marry Daniel (Romeo
Vasquez), a pure-hearted local lad who promises her to love her even
from beyond the grave, due to the family curse - vampirism, like
madness, is borne by blood, and he has unwittingly kept the curse
alive by keeping his vampire wife Dona (Mary Walter) locked in the
basement. Every night she wakes up in her coffin, her now-animalistic
screams pleading for blood. Don Enrique is forced to whip her into
submission but can’t let go – the family has become insular to
the point of incestuous. Filipino gothic was a relatively small and
short-lived genre, but de Leon certainly made it his own; weird
without intent and without a single trace of kitsch, this is, along
with The Blood Drinkers, undoubtedly one of Filipino horror’s
finest moments.

Greatest Mutant
Pinoy Monster films: The “Blood Island Trilogy” A trio of
ooze-soaked atrocities tailor-made for the sex-and-blood crowd in US
drive-ins. An insane Dr Moreau-like scientist, played alternately by
Ronald Remy and Eddie Garcia, experiments on atomic mutations to the
horror of visiting American John Ashley and his bevy of buxom
bathing-suited beauties. Brides Of Blood (Eddie Romero, 1968), Mad
Doctor Of Blood Island (Eddie Romero & Gerry de Leon, 1969) and
Beast Of Blood (Eddie Romero, 1970)… Eddie told me both he and
Gerry de Leon considered these films to be the WORST they’d ever
made. Eddie, I for one violently disagree…

Greatest Pinoy
Blaxpoitation Films: Again, not one but SIX in a row courtesy of
Uncle Cirio, turning his wild mutant stew of black actors, kung fu
thrills, flares, funkadelic guitars and exotic Filipino scenery into
some his most successful exports: Savage! (1973), TNT Jackson (1974),
Bamboo Gods And Iron Men (1974), Ebony Ivory And Jade (1976), The
Muthers (1976) and Death Force (1978).

Greatest Mad Max
Ripoffs: Stryker (dir. Cirio H. Santiago, 1983) The first of
Santiago’s MANY Road Warrior riffs, a startlingly good vision of a
post-apocalyptic world in chaos and littered with souped-up cars,
white warriors in leather and studs, and an army of mutant dwarves
with blowdarts. Then there’s W (aka W Is War; dir. Willy Milan,
1983), possibly the most outrageous, if only, entry in the Gay
Post-Apocalypse (or “Gaypocalypse”) genre from veteran
cheesemonger Willy (Clash Of The Warlords, Ultimax Force) Milan.
Imagine an unnatural wedding of Mad Max and Death Wish: undercover
cop Ally aka W2 is neutered by a futuristic, Nazi, Satanic and very
non-hetero biker gang. Unable to pleasure his now-promiscuous wife,
he embarks on a revenge spree against the eeeeevil Nesfero’s gang –
in a souped-up penis subsititute! A squalling, fuzzed-out biker
soundtrack, pointless explosions galore and literally every available
stunt guy in Manila tumbling to their “deaths” make this the high
watermark of insane Filipino cinema.

Greatest Pinoy Kung
Fu Film: The Return Of The Dragon (dir. Celso ad. Castillo, 1974)
Ramon Zamora trades in his usual cheap yuks for a more restrained and
almost mythic performance in this uniquely Pinoy tale of death and
retribution. With stunning direction from Da Kid, the always gorgeous
Lotis Key, and of course the forceful presence of Zamora cementing
his position as the Bruce Lee of the Philippines.

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HERR LEAVOLD

Andrew Leavold owned and managed Trash Video, the largest cult video rental store in Australia, from 1995 to 2010. He is also a film-maker, published author, researcher, film festival curator, musician, and above all, unrepentant and voracious fan of the pulpier aspects of genre cinema. His writing has been published globally in mainstream magazines, academic journals and underground cinema fanzines, for the last two decades.

Leavold toured the world with his feature length documentary The Search For Weng Weng (2013). His ten years of research on genre filmmaking in the Philippines formed the basis of Mark Hartley's documentary Machete Maidens Unleashed! (released internationally in 2010), on which Leavold is also Associate Producer, and he has since been recognized both in the Philippines and abroad as the foremost authority in his area of expertise, teaching Philippine film history at university level in Australia, the United States, and throughout the Philippines. Leavold teamed with Daniel Palisa to co-direct The Last Pinoy Action King (2015), both a feature-length documentary on the late Filipino action idol Rudy Fernandez, and a dissection of film royalty, politics, privilege, idolatry, and the Philippines’ pyramid of power.

He is currently shooting two new feature-length documentaries – The Most Beautiful Creatures On The Skin Of The Earth (also with Palisa), the third in his Filipino trilogy, about erotic cinema under Marcos; and Pub, a history of the vibrant St Kilda music scene as told through its most outrageous progeny, Fred Negro. Both films are due for release in 2018.